Here at Pictureline, we had the fantastic opportunity to host a workshop and seminar in-store with the amazing Dave Black, an award-winning Time, Sports Illustrated, National Geographic and Newsweek photographer, known for his dedicated 35-years of sport photography, as well as his creative lightpainting technique. Dave is passionate about the idea that light is the greatest influence in which to captivate an audience and his beautiful images proves this is true.
Photo Credit © Dave Black "Ballerina"During the August workshop, Dave taught a step-by-step process for small off-camera flashes and the tools needed to create dynamic lightpaintings. Once the workshop was concluded, Dave wanted to see what everyone had learned by submitting their best images through Instagram in hopes of winning 1st and 2nd place for a Lightpainting Contest!
Congratulations to the 1st place winner, Phill Monson for his beautiful image of the Toadstool Hoodoos formation in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Phill traveled to Kanab with a friend and set up his gear to photograph the setting sun in southern Utah. After finishing for the night, they both traveled back to their campsite and were woken up to an extreme lightning show. Deciding it would be worth the hike back to see if they could achieve some lightning photography, Phill discovered the storm was passing right in line with the main hoodoo. They stayed up from 3:30am until sunrise photographing the lightning, and are lucky they did so we could see this incredible image!
Shot with a Canon 5D Mark III and 16-35mm, this image is one of several 30 second exposures taken to capture the best "strike." To achieve the lightpainting, Phill used the Brinkman Dual Zenon light gun by bouncing the hard light off the rock behind so the Hoodoo formation had a nice, even temperature and filled the entire rock face.
Congratulations Phill on this tremendous photograph, and your 1st place prize, a Manfrotto BeFree Tripod!
Photo Credit © Phill Monson, 30 sec, f/3.2, ISO 640Second place goes to another very talented photography, Eric Schramm, for his light painted photograph of a vintage Schwinn! Eric is an avid cyclist and wanted to combine his love of bikes with his love of photography, and use the image as a self-promo piece for his studio. Eric tracked down a collector here in Salt Lake who owned several vintage bikes, which turned out was almost an entire bike shop in his basement!
The image was shot with a Calumet 4x5 film camera on Fuji sheet film. A large softbox was used as overhead lighting for the shadow exposure in addition to a flashlight for painting the bike, which were both daylight color balanced for correct lighting temperature. Eric used Polaroid film to test the painting before switching it to the 4x5 film. No additional editing was used, "I did everything in-camera. To me, that's what painting with light is all about; doing it with your hands at the moment of exposure."
Congratulations Eric on this beautiful image, and enjoy your 2nd place prize, a SanDisk 64GB Memory Card!
Photo Credit © Eric Schramm, 90 sec, Fuji Velvia 100Learn more about Phill Monson and Eric Schramm at their websites!